


Cremisius Ex Machina

by TypingBosmer



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Battle, Blood and Injury, Gen, Helpful Cole, POV The Iron Bull (Dragon Age), Some Humor, Swearing, Tal-Vashoth The Iron Bull (Dragon Age), The Western Approach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-09-06 18:30:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20296033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TypingBosmer/pseuds/TypingBosmer
Summary: While fighting a dragon, Iron Bull gets separated from the party in a rather ridiculous, but potentially deadly way. Will there be someone out there to help him in the middle of the desert?





	Cremisius Ex Machina

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Avaquet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avaquet/gifts).

Heavy as a boulder, the dragon's paw presses against his chest, pushing down, harder and harder and harder - till he can taste the prickly, hot, metallic mush that is slowly squeezing out of him. Well, at least he has not shitted himself, right?

The hard, curved claws plant deep into the sun-scorched earth around him, caging him in. He strains to push them off, choking on the liquid metal, feeling the lance of pain thicken in his chest. Letting it thicken. It is pain that drives him, after all: like a giant, rusty key that he needs to keep turning within himself, no matter how much it scrapes at him, so he can unlock that second wind. And... bloody... chop up... the dragon... to pieces!

The creature cocks her spiky head, huffing through her slit-like nostrils, and peers down. Almost curiously. Almost like she is one of those playful cats that rush to rub against the Weird Squirrelly Kid's legs the moment he sets foot in Skyhold.

Oh fuck, but she is beautiful. Ataashi. Glorious one.

From where he lies, with every single grain of sand out there cutting into his back, he can get a good view of the little turquoise streaks that pulse on the underside of her thick, ribbed, brick-red neck. Pent-up magic that she may unleash at any second - a blaze strong enough to turn the chunks of crumbled Vint colonnade all around them into slippery lumps, like molten glass. Oh, there is so much raw power contained within her gigantic form. And it is gonna feel so good when he pushes back against that power, and brings Ataashi to heel.

He grits his teeth, and draws in a ragged, scalding breath - and brings himself to his feet, shoving the dragon's paw off himself. It takes much out of him, and he thinks he can hear something crackling - but the second wind is loose, and he is swept away in a blood-red river, not feeling anything except the cleaver's hilt within his grip.

Hack, hack, hack, and hack again. The blade, broad and slightly chipped and glimmering with the prettiest shade of pink, carves into the dragon's foot, shaving off the upper layer of those rock-solid scales and hitting a blood vessel. Ataashi snarls, tipping dangerously to the side, while the pungent dark liquid squirts out all around him, turning the sand to mush.

Its smell hits him harder than any drink, than any of that elfroot crap. There might be others out there, doing their own job to fell the dragon - those two bolts of silver that come out of nowhere and sting Ataashi's other foot have to be Squirrelly’s daggers. He knows he should pay more attention to them, work as a unit; but the call of the streaming, steaming blood, and the mesmerizing beauty of the writhing dragon, are too much to resist. He feels almost afloat now, separated from his worn-out, sweating, battered body - and thus he glides up the nearest pile of debris, leaping from one jutting chunk of shattered stone to the other. His goal is the nice and big rock crumb at very top, from where he can launch himself into a leap and, hopefully, lodge his cleaver square into the middle of Ataashi's throat.

Hopefully.

He does, indeed, reach his goal; and he is already in position, legs spread apart and shoulders drawn back... When, stirred into a rage by one of his team mates, Ataashi whips around and strikes at the rubble pile with her spiky tail. It hits the stone with a crackle and a grind, the sharpened tip grazing his chest, and the once (more or less) firm ground under his feet gives a tremendous lurch.

He keeps his balance, still standing upright on his rock crumb. But the impact of Ataashi's desperate lash makes it slip off the top and bounce down and down and down, jolting madly like a carriage on a shoddily paved road (he's ridden plenty of those in his day as a merc, as the Orlesians care more about getting their hat shape just right than about fixing their streets beyond a superficial coat of gaudy paint). Along the way, the rock gains speed, and ends up whooshing off along the sandy slope, away from the dragon, and away from the startled cries of his companions.

The whooshing continues, long enough for him to start, well, kind of enjoying it. What with the wind whistling in his ears and slapping at his face, and the desert all mixing together, the glaring pale blue of the sky and the deep orange of the sand forming an endless coil... Like some sort of colourful whipped-up desert. And then, just as he feels like grinning, and maybe letting out a whoop or two, his rock crumb grinds to a halt, and he is tossed off, head first, tracing a small, whistling curve in the air, which is cut short when his horns get stuck in a crack between two cliffs.

He is left hanging - literally - with his toes wobbling a few inches above ground. He probably looks pretty ridiculous - and hey, he will be the first to laugh at that. When he does try to laugh, though, his entire torso is ripped up from within by a huge, unseen plough, with wide and jagged blades. Awkwardly slanting his sighted eye, he does his best to inspect himself - and registers, with a tired sort of 'Eh' at the back of his mind, that Ataashi has not just grazed him.

Her tail has, in fact, turned his chest into a mangled, oozing mess - and that's on top of the bruises from being pressed down into the sand, and whatever shit his ribs went through when he burst free from under her paw. The 'Eh' of discovery at the sight of all of this is very, very tired indeed - because, the moment the world stopped behaving like the contents of a pastry chef's mixing bowl, his second wind left him. He has no strength left to turn that key again, and all that is left is rust. And ache. And the numbness that is just beginning to eat away at his dangling feet.

He knows that numbness is about the worst shit that can happen; it's a sign that your body is giving in. And he can't afford to give in, not when he is stuck like that, what could be miles away from Ataashi's hunting grounds. With nothing but rock, rock, rock in sight; blank, never-ending folds, not brightened up even by the most sorry-looking bush, so alike that it's bloody impossible to tell which way he came from.

He thinks of yanking himself loose, of filling his lungs with an echoing roar and calling out to someone, anyone, who might be fucking around in this desert... Even if it's a bunch of creepy, chanting Vints. You can kill Vints at least. And loot them for healing potions, because he sure does not have a droplet of anything on him, except all the blood. Even the sweat under his harness, even the spit in his mouth - it has all dried up.

He just thinks of all of this, though. And the thoughts are not strong enough to break through the fog that has begun flooding into his skull. All he can really focus his mind on is the drip-drip-drip of blood that drizzles from his wounds onto the sand below. Just as it did from Ataashi. Fuck, why did she get to be so dignified when he is flopping around like a sausage.

He tries to come up with a lewd comment on that; tries to laugh. But instead, chokes on a stream of molten copper.

So that's what he gets, huh? That's what he gets - for giving in to his savage side, for getting lost in the heat and the sweat and the smell of fresh blood and the hacking of his blade against the dragon scales. For forgetting to fight as a unit. Like the bloody Tal-Vashoth that he is.

That's what he gets. Nothing but the copper on his lips and the empty, indifferent desert as far as his faltering mind can stretch.

'Kaffas - is that the chief?!' a familiar voice resounds from an unknown direction, warped by the ebbing and flowing waves of fog. 'What are you doing up there?! And do you know how stupid you look?!'

He tears open his good eye - which he does not even remember slipping shut. There are blotches of colour obscuring his vision, like his eyeball had gone mouldy - and in between their grainy edges, he makes out hazy silhouettes. Each recognizable even through the eye mould, because he knows who they are in his very bone marrow. His kids. His bloody kids.

'What are you doing here... Kremsicle?' he croaks, wondering if that thing pulling at his frozen lips is a smile.

'Helping Captain Rylen at the Keep look for sources of drinking water! Oh, shit, but you are in a bad shape! Stitches, need some help!'

More voices join in, blending into an incoherent bustle that he also knows in his marrow. Soothed by it into a content drowsiness, he finally indulges in giving in... And before he drifts off, he hears a voice that does not quite fit in, and yet cuts loud and clear through the fog.

Squirrelly Kid.

Showing up without any introduction, or any explanation as to how he crossed all this distance and figured out where the rock crumb had landed. As always.

'They came. They called. Horns pointing up'.

**Author's Note:**

> Cole's line references what he would have said about Krem dying, had Bull remained loyal to the Qun during Demands of the Qun.


End file.
